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Thursday, June 28, 2007

Reflecting on NECC and Philosophizing About Twitter

Many great minds have blogged during NECC but I do not find my mind nimble enough to blog on the fly. I like the skype streams Jeff posted...that kind of on the spot thinking and reflecting works better for me. Now with NECC over as i sit in the airport I can start to sort out my experience and my take aways. I will l add my humble voice to the arena...partly to work through my thoughts...partly to share the things that impacted me... partly to create a record that can guide my own planning for the future.

Monday at NECC.......and everyday at NECC..(I have to say it )... is about the conversations and the relationships and that is the hard part to bring to those of you who were viewing from a distance. A few folks have skyped in for bits and pieces (of course the built -in camera in the Apple /Mac world helps here). The afternoon in the bloggers lounge was the gathering place of monumental proportion. The lounges are a great edition to NECC allowing like minded souls to congregate and find one another. At any given time in the day you can pull up a chair in the lounge and have some good conversation. And then there was/is twitter. I just read Chris Sessums beginning reflection on it educational potential. But the most powerful thing for me is the quote he starts with and his reflection..."it makes us feel good about being human." At the Leadership Symposium David Warlick talked about the digital divide having to do with being connected which struck me at the time and now seems even more empowering. Twitter has the potential to make us neighbors across time and space. It is different than most other mediums...it shrinks are world and catches us up when we drop into the "neighborhood". We will see what will be...but for now it is extending my community and my NECC/Edubloggers experience.

As for NECC...I am not sure how much I will write on specific sessions but I will try to articulate my take aways.

New friends/new voices to inform my thought and practice

New understanding of some tools and new tools- the best one being voice thread

A better sense of how to proceed minus textbooks ( this one probably deserves a post of its own)

A better concept of the need for change in the setup of our physical space

A validation of where I am going but more importantly a more deliberate plan moving into the future

Two areas were particularly impacted...

Approaching professional development and technology training through deliberately guided discussion of pedagogy and planning

This came through Karl Fisch( and team) and through conversation with Chris Lehman

Both painted a great picture of the process they used starting with identify what learning they wanted , discussing what it might look like and then looking at tools and just in time instruction. Seems simple enough but for some reason it came together for me as a deliberate strategy in these conversations

The other has to do with leadership style and thing sI need to cultivate in myself and then through that within the community. Again Chris contributed here as did the keynote with Dr Tyson and a lot of my conversations. It is that constant flow of recognition , appreciation and celebration which is so important to a community.Again nothing earth shattering but in relationship and conversation with others we can get new focus for our own practice.

I apoligize for the kind of journaling flavor of this post...but then again that is part of the blogging experience...time to collect your own thoughts. I will post more about the textbook issue and I will be interested to see how the twitter discussion develops.